How Robot Cars React to Road Accidents and Other Fascinating News on the Web

May 7, 2014

1. Programmed to Kill

So an autonomous car is cruising through an intersection when suddenly, a split-second decision needs to be made. A collision is unavoidable, so the software on the car must decide to either hit a Volvo SUV or a Mini Cooper. How does it decide? I’m not sure, but it definitely pays to befriend as many auto software engineers as you can. From Wired: The robot car of tomorrow may just be programmed to hit you.

2. A Senior Moment

The number of Americans who will be 65 or older will double over the next four decades. And we’re not alone. Much of the developed world is getting even older. (Procter & Gamble’s 1985 acquisition of Metamucil is looking more and more prescient.)

+ “You’d think that as modern-day scientists, they’d be more objective, more dispassionate about their subject — possibly even a little cold-blooded — but really they are just like everyone else: they want to delay death.” The researchers racing to figure out ways to make us live even longer.

+ “As of July 1st, there will be no swearing in movies and theatrical productions or from the concert stage.” David Remnick on Putin’s Four Dirty Words.

4. Captivity

“They are not thinking of Twitter, where the captivity is the cause of the day, nor of the campaigns on the streets of Lagos for a more competent and less callous government, nor of the rallies in front of Nigeria’s embassies worldwide, nor of the suddenly ramped-up coverage by international media, nor of how this war will engulf even those who are only just beginning to hear about it, nor of those who, free for now, will someday become captives. They are perhaps thinking only that night is falling again, and that the men will come to each of them again, an unending horror.” The New Yorker’s Teju Cole on Nigerian schoolgirls in captivity.

5. Alibaba(booey)

Alibaba handles more business than any other e-commerce player. It’s also a search engine. And a bank. And its about to have one of the biggest IPOs of all time. So it’s a reasonable time to want a clear answer to this question: What is Alibaba?

6. A Bundle of Oy

7. The Simple Life

“Could everything that made the lifelong bachelor so unique, so stubborn, so confounding, so wonderful — a life rooted in rejection of instant communication — be allowing his killer to get away with it.” There’s been one unsolved killing in Montgomery County this year. And it might be unsolved in part because the victim lived an offline life.

8. You Are Amped

“On average, one coffee shop opened in New York every three days.” So if you are looking for serious coffee in New York, you can find it everywhere. (Decaf clinics are the new methadone clinics.)

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